Dizzy Gillespie, the seminal American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer and composer born John Birks Gillespie, would have turned 93 today.

Google are celebrating his birthday by featuring a Google doodle image of the jazz pioneer on their homepage.

Here are the top ten things you need to know about the man frequently regarded as the greatest jazz trumpeter of all time.

1) He was born in Cheraw, South Carolina on October 21st 1917, the youngest of nine children.

2) Dizzy started to play the piano at the age of four and taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve.

3) He received a music scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in Laurinburg, North Carolina but turned it down to start his music career.

4) His image is associated with his trademark trumpet – with a bell that bends upward at a 45 degree angle rather than pointing straight ahead, as with the conventional design. According to Dizzy’s autobiography, this originally occurred after someone sat on his trumpet during a job in 1953 and Gillespie liked the change in tone that resulted.

5) Dizzy made his first recording, King Porter Stomp, as a member of Teddy Hill’s – the manager of Minton's Playhouse, a seminal jazz club in Harlem – band.

6) Around the same time, Dizzy met the woman who was to become his wife, Lorraine. The married in 1940 and remained together until his death.

7) With Charlie Parker, Gillespie jammed at famous jazz clubs like Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House, where the first seeds of bebop were planted.

8) Gillespie mentored many of the young musicians that came to be associated with Manhattan’s 52nd Street (known for its abundance of jazz clubs), including Miles Davis and Max Roach. He also mentored The Muppets, in a manner:

9) In 1964 Gillespie jokily put himself forward as a presidential candidate, prominsing the White House would be renamed The Blues House if he were elected. He also promised to appoint a cabinet composed of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Mary Lou Williams, Thelonious Monk, and Malcolm X.

10) Dizzy Gillespie died of pancreatic cancer on January 6th 1993 aged 75.